Well today looking back at "this blog in history" I find this article on the subject of...dating sites. [ahh, spring; when a young middle aged man's blogger's fancies heterosexual-desires-not-using-the-word-fancy turn to thoughts of love trashing-some-girl-named-LITTLESTAR. -ed]

It's not technically from exactly three years ago, but hey its an imperfect world. I will endeavour to do better next time.

Roman engineers chipped an aqueduct through more than 100 kilometers of stone to connect water to cities in the ancient province of Syria. The monumental effort took more than a century, says the German researcher who discovered it.

Seriously, read this article. It's one of those "blows your mind beyond all comprehension" that the Romans could do so much [without a compass, for example! -ed] It does spoil the romance (at the expense of the realism) to learn at the end that this massive underground aqueduct turns out to have been a white elephant: it didn't do what it was intended to do, having been out a fractional degree for 90-some kilometres. Still kind of surprising the Romans couldn't have figured something out.

Maria Sharapova started the year with an 18-match winning streak, including victory at the Australian Open, and looked capable of dominating.

But the remainder of Sharapova's season was blighted by a rotator cuff injury that eventually forced her to sit out the final five months.

Ana Ivanovic saw off Dinara Safina to claim her maiden major in Paris.

Rising star - Caroline Wozniacki

Wozniacki collected four titles between August and November to emerge as the latest teen sensation.

The 18-year-old prefers to stay at the baseline where she can use her speed, fitness and retrieving skills to wear down opponents.

Wozniacki has so far enjoyed her best results on hard courts and indoor carpet, although also has a good pedigree on grass having been Wimbledon junior champion in 2006.

World number 10 Agnieszka Radwanska is the highest ranked of the latest crop of talent, while Alize Cornet (#16), Victoria Azarenka (#15) and Dominika Cibulkova (#19) all finished the season ranked inside the top 20.

Other photos worth looking at are Alona Bondarenko:

Maria Kirilenko:

And of course lets not forget Daniela Hantuchova:

Also keep your eye on Sabine Lisicki:

Tzvetana Pironkova:

and Agnes Szavay:

Definately watch the last three carefully... you won't be seeing them in the finals or semis![whatever you do, don't watch any match with Sarah Gromert! Just don't do it! -ed]

2009-03-30

Of those infected machines, the researchers consider about 30 per cent to be "high-value" targets, such as computers in ministries, embassies, news networks and non-governmental organizations.

The compromised computers included, among many others, the ministry of foreign affairs of Iran; the embassies of India, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany and Pakistan; the ASEAN Secretariat; the Asian Development Bank; news organizations and an unclassified computer located at NATO headquarters.

In particular, the investigation finds that computers belonging to Tibetan organizations were manually targeted and compromised to an unprecedented degree, giving those behind the malicious infection significant access to sensitive information from within the Tibetan community.

The report cited evidence that the Dalai Lama's private office computers had been the subject of attacks.

"The most obvious explanation, and certainly the one in which the circumstantial evidence tilts the strongest, would be that this set of high profile targets has been exploited by the Chinese state for military and strategic-intelligence purposes," the report states.

However the researchers stop short of directly implicating Beijing, saying they cannot confirm the Chinese government is behind the attack.

Chinese authorities have already denied any allegations of wrongdoing and have dubbed the report "nonsense."

Was notorious pig-farming prostitute killer Robert Pickton just the designated fall guy for the Hells Angels who really killed those women? That's the rumour I heard over the weekend. Here's what I was able to dig up on the subject:

BIGG: She talked about a prostitution ring on a few occasions, but I couldn't get, it was like she would never, ever finish what she was saying because she would just start to cry and that. Then I would hold her.

MACINTYRE: But she definitely said there was Hells Angels there?

BIGG: Yes, definitely, and affiliates, and friends, right. I call it affiliates. She said friends. So friends of the Hells Angels that would party out there.

The first was Lisa Yeles, who used to be married to "Blacky the biker".

The second was a man called Vickers who was associated with a well-known Downtown Eastside sex worker flophouse.

Adam said police ruled out any involvement between the pair and the alleged murders Pickton is being tried for.

Adams said police initially thought Vickers was a Hells Angels member but later learned that was a mistaken belief.

Holy hellhole, could there be any more similarities than this? Hells Angelsrape a stripper at a 'yard' on the edge of the city, in what appears to bea car salvage/chop shop shed, and threaten to mulch her alive and feed her to pigs:

The men cleaned out the hay and manure, pressure washed it and, with materials brought in from the demolition business, built a stage and dance floor, installed coolers, beer taps, stoves, ovens and everything else a pub required. It would hold a capacity crowd of 750 people.

According to Chubb, who worked the door as a bouncer, there were never any "patch" or "color" wearing members of the Hell's Angels in attendance. However, he did admit the Mayor of Port Coquitlam came to the "Palace" one night.

Dave Pickton would throw parties for New Year's Eve, Easter, Valentine's Day and other holidays, putting up advertising flyers in laundromats and would bring the pigs for roasting. His behavior at these parties would be cordial to a few of the men he knew.

TUESDAY'S PROCEEDINGS IN BRIEF

RCMP Insp. Don Adam, the lead investigator, testified about the police interrogation of Robert (Willie) Pickton that took place Feb. 23, 2002, a day after he was arrested and charged with two murders of missing women. One of the themes police used during Pickton's interrogation was that he was going to be seen in prison as a famous serial killer. Adam recalled Pickton had the "upper hand" during the police interview because "he's got the information I want."

When the trial opened Jan. 22, Pickton admitted the six women listed on the indictment are dead and their partial remains were found on his farm, but he denied killing them. Pickton's lawyer asked Monday about three other people who were arrested and questioned about the murders, including two women, one of whom was a friend of Pickton's.

What is the motive for her extremism? It’s the same as any Islamic fundamentalist. Both believe they have the absolute pipeline to truth and not only will neither brook any dissent, but for them death to the infidel/enemy is a “rational”, wished for, outcome. “Liberals are always against America,” she says, which makes them enemies of America. “We won’t have any enemies because we’re going to kill them.”

At the end of her book she quotes political philosopher Paul Johnson from Enemies of Society who says that “a man who deliberately inflicts violence on the language will almost certainly inflict violence on human beings if he acquires the power.” The violent language in Coulter’s speeches, articles and books cannot be missed and must not be underestimated.

I’m surprised that some crazed right-winger hasn’t taken her seriously, deciding that, in the name of Coulter patriotism, it’s his duty to kill as many “liberals” as he can. Then, if captured alive, he can offer the “Ann Coulter defence”. Just as Islamic terrorists act in the name of Allah, he would be acting in the name of Ann. Murder in the name of ideology is neither new nor uncommon.

The historical trend is clear and Harper’s magazine (or some other publication) would be doing America, indeed the world, a service in reprinting its November 1964 article “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” by historian Richard Hofstadter who, in presciently describing the Ann Coulter of today, said he used the term paranoid style “simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy” of its followers.

He also writes about "paranoid fantasies of Hofstadter’s 1960s Goldwater fanatics".

Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.

Here is Senator McCarthy, speaking in June 1951 about the parlous situation of the United States:

How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, which it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.…What can be made of this unbroken series of decisions and acts contributing to the strategy of defeat? They cannot be attributed to incompetence.…The laws of probability would dictate that part of…[the] decisions would serve the country’s interest.

Hofstadter might be "interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric" but there's no reason that 45 years later our left-winger Daniel Johnson can't be looking at the simple question of whether or not the 1964 article discusses a "sound program". After the fact, and after the work of none other than Miss Ann Coulter, we know that in fact the good Senator was onto something. There was an infamous conspiracy by a group of people paid by the Soviet Union to affect political change in the United States. Like all cell-structured conspiracies they weren't chumming around with each other in their off hours, which is why people like Goldwater and McCarthy had to be there saying anything in the first place.

Wow, has it only been a year since I discovered the Onion on YouTube? The "domestic abuse dropped to zero" video is still one that regularly cracks me up. Since then, here's some of the other Onion gems I saw:

One of my favourite celebs, Jennifer Love Hewitt, is apparently a nobody these days.

Cancer-striken man who just doesn't buy into all that medical nonsense:

Uh, do you think it might be a semi-relevent fact that Canada's public healthcare system could even be considered as a factor?

The really ironic thing still has to come from talking to nurses [especially nurses! -ed] or public healthcare defenders. Asked if they are happy about how, say, Ed Stelmach or Rodney MacDonald or even Dalton McGuinty are running their provincial healthcare systems, you'll get near-universal condemnation. Of course, if you suggest maybe that they shouldn't run it and that Bill Gates or Richard Branson or Rupert Murdoch or Lee Kun-hee should take it over, you'll hear nothing but bitching!

Uh, duh. All countries have arbitrary immigration rules. Some people are barred before they arrive, others when they arrive. Just below here I mentioned a trip to London, England last year. Guess what? I was questioned at the airport. I even got the "full meal deal", where I was selected for a bag search and required to provide information on where I was staying, when I was leaving, and asked what I did back in Alberta that made me so willing to go back when my little U.K. stint was completed.

I never mentioned this before, but almost a decade ago I had a friend barred from entering the United States. She was unemployed, not going to school, was single, and lived with her mother (who she was constantly fighting with). A U.S. Immigration officer at the Edmonton International Airport refused to allow her to visit a friend in Texas because she had no ties to Edmonton and therefore was a risk to go on the lam and live/work in Texas. Even then Alberta was booming, and the odds of a person who couldn't hold a job here finding herself work there was close to nil. Regardless, this guy blocked her trip and put her on a 1-year watch list: her name was flagged and she was not permitted entry to the United States for that period.

But I was more curious as to the in-game timeline. What happens when during the game (from Time 0: the Liberty Island mission) is an interesting query, but I can't seem to find anything relevent. If anybody comes up with anything, just leave a note in the comments.

Having been to London, and having recently obtained a few classic Bond movies, I was interested in having the "Thames Chase Scene" from The World is Not Enough broken down on Google Maps or something so I could trace it in combination with my own route (I never, tragically, made it to the infamous MI6 building itself).

2009-03-28

Well, Earth Hour 2009 is upon us. My buddy in GP has already turned on all of his lights and all of his appliances (first time he's done laundry in half a decade) to get Anti-EarthHour underway. He thought it started at 8pm, but it started at 8:30. Over here at Third Edge of the Sword world headquarters in Edmonton, we're turning on every light in the place. Porch lights. Flood lights. Kitchen lights, that light under the rangetop, the light over the countertops. All the bedroom lights, all the reading lamps. Laundry room light, dining room light, all on. I've disabled all the computer screensavers, am putting a DVD on repeat on the computer, and I've even turned on the webcams... they have little LED lights to indicate they are turned on.

Oh yeah, and at 8:45pm, just after my Earth Hour defilement has begun, I am leaving for the evening and might crash at a friend's place, meaning it could be 18 hours before I get a chance to turn anything back off. Should I fire up my BBQ too...?

In celebration of Earth Hour, let's enjoy the things that make our society great:being able to burn copious numbers of joules for our own personal enjoyment. Here are some videos to get you in the spirit:

Metallica - Fuel

Times Square - world centre for copious energy use:

(catch the hot legs at 1:44)

Here's a street full of neon lights in Red China:

Here's that infamous photo showing how North Korea is dark while South Korea is bright. Which nation would you rather live in?

Flaring a well at Tier One in good ol' Alberta:

An H-Bomb isn't a very practical way to get energy, but the enviro-weenies will cringe when they watch this, so it all works out:

Bonus Su-Ling:Here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Also you can see the back of her head. C'mon ppl, we have a hot asian reporter chick in our city and no photos? (I understand that if you're her facebook friend as my brother is -- they sort of know each other -- then you get to see lots more photos of her. Somebody get on that!)

By now, most people except for overpaid IT specialists *cough cough* have heard of the dreaded Conficker virus.

Conficker A was thought to be a test-bed, infecting any machine that wasn't Ukranian [ooohhh, irony -ed]. Conficker B was a pain in the ass that security forces have gotten a handle on, particularly in the West.

Yet, on March 6 and on March 17, the bad guys somehow slipped a malicious software upgrade to millions of infected PCs. The upgrade began organizing the bots into a vast peer-to-peer, or P2P, network, says SRI program manager Phillip Porras. P2P networks are powerful and flexible, because each PC can function as a command server. They're commonly used to share videos and music and play complex online games.

The upgrade also included instructions for each bot to begin a daily routine on April 1 of checking in at 500 rendezvous points, randomly selected from a pool of 50,000 domain names. This trick will make it more difficult for the Cabal to preregister addresses, says Porras.

Worst of all is the question of why the Conficker worm has been made, who asked for it, and what they plan to do with it. This sophistication smells of coordination, and I wouldn't put the ChiComs past it. Regardless, "Dark Google", a massive P2P system, or a phishing or espionage attempt. It could also sell processing time on zombie computers for nefarious purposes, or...

Obama defended his budget at an online town hall meeting Thursday, saying, "It's a budget that cuts the things we don't need to make room for the investments we do, a budget that cuts the massive deficits we've inherited in half, by the end of my first term, and offers a blueprint for America's success in the 21st century."

Maybe the teleprompter can have Obama tell us exactly where there are "cuts" to "things we don't need"? I haven't heard of Obama (or any liberal, really) of ever cutting a program on the theory that "we don't need it".

The NHL has gone carbon neutral, in a charge led by Andrew Ferrence, Suzuki's little bum-boy in professional hockey. Well, okay, so some NHL players are paying $320 to "become carbon neutral". This is peanuts to these people (which is why letters about families spending $1700 on a night at an Oilers game doesn't faze them), but it serves as a good reminder that Ferrence, who had no problem taking a salary from oilsands workers as a Flame, is now trashing the oilsands and encouraging people to pay more money for fewer services.

A suicide bomber in Afghanistan accidentally blew up his fellow militants. I showed this to our health and safety coordinator at work (great gig by the way: an extra half-grand a month on a paycheque to be able to lecture people all the time) who asked a long-standing question regarding the female suicide bombers.

Men get 72 virgins in heaven for blowing themselves up, but what do the the women get?

KAMLOOPS, B.C. -- Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says he doesn't like Canada's softwood lumber deal with the United States but he's not sure re-opening the agreement would do any good.

Ignatieff told a town hall meeting in Kamloops on Thursday that reopening the two-year-old deal might only create a lot of work for lawyers with no guarantee for helping the forest sector out of its economic slump.

"I'm being very straight with you; I know this is not a good deal," he said.

I'm not sure what standard Iggy is using to say "this is not a good deal", particularly in the middle of B.C. forest country. After all, the softwood lumber deal alone should have been enough to give Harper a majority in 2008: this has been an issue since 1982. Canada has fought to international courts, and trade hearings, and what has that gotten us? The Americans just ignore any ruling they don't like. George W. Bush's government ignored rulings they didn't like. Bill Clinton's government ignored rulings they didn't like.

In the end, Harper reached an agreement that didn't give either side everything they wanted (as all agreements do), but in the end Canada got $4 billion of the $5.3 billion we were owed back. Ignatieff says that he wishes that we got all $5.3. No shit Sherlock. Of course, just saying you want the money somebody owes you doesn't bring it to you. In the end, the post title's old adage came into play: we got most of what we were owed from an organization that was perfectly willing to pay us nothing. In negotiations, there's something called a BATNA (no relation to NAFTA): the best alternative to a settlement. This is your proverbial "ace in the hole" (though in the commonly understood sense of the term this isn't how you treat it). In the event of no softwood lumber agreement, the Americans simply keep $5.3 billion (back when the U.S. government cared about $0.0053 trillion dolalrs).

This is a good thing, and that Harper and Bush allegedly did it all in one half hour phone call speaks to Harper's skill (and Bush's easygoing nature). Naturally Ignatieff has to trash it. What would he have done? (Answer: not as well, which is why he vows not to reopen it. The way the U.S. Treasury is going these days, they'd find some way to charge us $5.3 billion instead of owe it)

The Liberal leader said he also opposes increasing the GST, saying that might snuff out efforts to restore the economy.

On the environment, the Ignatieff said his party is moving away from the carbon tax that got such a negative reception in last fall's national election.

"We took the carbon tax to the public and the public didn't think it was such a good idea," he said.

"I'm trying to get myself elected here and if the public, after mature consideration think that's the dumbest thing they've ever heard then I've got to listen."

A Liberal's GST promise doesn't carry much weight anymore Mr. Ignatieff, its a shame your answer couldn't somehow acknowledge that. It was interesting to hear him label what Suzuki et al. referred to as "the dumbest thing they've ever heard".

Nicole Scarpone forced her way into the house and ordered the men pay her $10 for sex.

Although she had previously been to the house in a business capacity, Nicole was promptly arrested for using “aggressive prostitution tactics”.

Scarpone’s arrest affidavit said she had: “Been to the property before and performed sexual acts, but was not invited over there on the night in question – she had showed up to make some quick money.”

After banging on the door of the apartment, she Nicole forced her way in and told the men present they owed her $100 before offering them sex for $10.

I don't know whats worse, that these pushy tele-diveinthedark-eters are getting out of hand, or that under Canada's National Do-Not-Call-Girl List (DNCG), she's still allowed to barge in because they were already "in a business relationship" with her.

There's only one thing I'm left wondering. Uh, did they take it? $10 on a $100 tab? If you go to the Keg after dine-and-dashing and they tell you that you owe them a Borden, but if you pay it plus another ten bucks you can eat again, go for it!

I've long said that the best thing that could happen now would be for the birfers to miraculously be proven right, just so they could watch what we do about it: nothing. That would be awesome.

If some Kenyan birth certificate turned up, do you really think Barack Obama would be removed from office? Would anyone on the right have the stomach for that fight, or want to risk the ire of the American people? Would those same American people allow this? The Republicans would get President Biden. Is that what they want?

Well first off, seeing how Biden is as creepy a VP as the MSM claimed that Cheney was, yes it is what they want. As for the first bit: are you totally looney? If it turned out that your saviour Obama held your nation's highest office in violation of the U.S. Constitution you would do nothing and in fact be happy with that?

To be fair, the Democrats have also been opposed (until about 3 months ago) to this bit:

Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

2009-03-25

Compared to what I put on my blog (and once briefly got involved in at mc79hockey), I'm being relatively restrained in the comments there. Regardless, a police-can-do-no-wrong character (who, for all I know, is the former security guard at my work who has the exact same opinion) is pretty sure that there is absolutely nothing wrong with what happened at the Vancouver Airport (though perhaps the officers were a little too hesitant to taser the dude with the camera too).

It's really gone overboard when, in what's fast becoming sport in this case, a poster joked about how big the stapler must have looked in the heat of the moment where officers had such inaccurate recollections. Pro-police buddy came back with...

do yourself a favor, leave your mom's basement. Get a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, and experience the real world.

Ha ha, good one, you sure showed that... philosophy reading guitarist. Girls will never go for that! It's usually a good first-principles procedure to check the person you're about to personally insult before you do so, just in case.

I also want it revealed someday that a super-awesome massively popular blogger turns out to be some 16 year old girl, and that for the last 2 3/4 years the internet world was reading brilliantly insightful prose that ran the gamet from bioethics to stellar sequences to 1930s movies... all delivered from her Mom's basement (where, of course, she would have to live only being 16 and having lost her father to a convenience store robber in 2004).

Remember long long long ago when I proposed some sort of app or reader to show where a person had made comments on various blogs? Well, I don't really remember either, which is why I don't have a link to where I proposed it. But they did it!

The U.N. just can't get food aid into Darfur. Hey do you know what worked well when the U.N. couldn't get aid into Iraq? The Americans just cleared the bastards out! (Disclaimer: Works only with a real man in the White House)

"I won't be anyone's fig leaf or anyone's third wheel," Barak told the crowd ahead of the vote. "We will be the counterweight that will guarantee that we won't have a narrow right-wing government, but a real government that will take care of the state of Israel."

Racist stereotyping remains a common fixture of both advertising and entertainment, and some of the ole time characters are still with us, like our Aunt Jemima and our Uncle Ben. Hell, General Foods just can’t let Uncle Ben go!

Uh, anybody want to guess the first group to be outraged if General Foods decided to unceremoneously drop either character?

2009-03-24

630 CHED's Bob Layton takes on public video surveillance on his blog. No direct linking to posts is available, but the entry name is "Big Criminal", posted 3/23/2009 12:00:00 AM.

With crime such a major concern, I don’t understand those who are still gnashing their teeth over surveillance cameras. Even as they deal with an unprecedented number of shootings in Vancouver, the Chicken Littles of personal freedom are wringing their hands about the increased camera surveillance during the upcoming Olympics. They’re afraid the cameras will be left up after the games are over, leading to quote: Intrusive policing techniques.

A bigger question of course is why the cameras are so needed during the Games... a lot of suicide bombers would be embarrassed to have their bad hair day broadcast to the world?

Anyways, a few people take objection to Layton's comments. Bill Murphy is one of them:

Cameras are just wonderful...for mopping up after the fact. Look at England, they've had cameras for years, After banning just about everything known to man instead of actually dealing with criminals, they also banned hoodies. Seems the police in the central video location couldn't see the perps faces, making it tougher to deal with the rape, mugging, or murder,AFTER it had already happened of course. No different than dialing 911 I guess. Ater all when seconds count tne police are hopefully only minutes away.

Layton replied:

In Calgary they are montitoring the cameras 24/7. Do you not think this might help? Tell me a better way to catch criminals and I will promote it.

Well first off they do monitor the cameras live in England. Yet somehow people are still murdered and robbed in London. Hell, I had no problem pissing on the sidewalk after a round at the pub with the full One Nation Under CCTV routine going on around me. Still, Bob Layton wants a better way to catch criminals? Okay, here goes.

Every single person who may have committed a recent crime is required to submit to police their whereabouts at the time in question. Anybody without an immediately confirmable alibi is arrested and their home subject to a search. Vehicles meeting the description of any ongoing investigation are to be stopped and searched, and impounded by police until such time as the investigation is complete.

Do you think that might help? That would be a very good way to catch criminals. The reason Layton may just happen to oppose this is because of the horrible price on fundamental freedoms that would result. To which I can only echo one of Bob's big lines on this subject: if you aren't guilty than you have nothing to worry about. I mean, sure you might be guilty of something else... may something not even a crime. Your husband thought you were at a baby shower the night that guy was gunned down at Southgate, but since you're a woman the same age as his missing wife, you were taken into custody and the girls weren't because you were at Whitemud Crossing on a date...and don't laugh because its not unprecidented. Still, there should be no problem with you surrendering your personal liberty so long as you are perfectly not guilty of anything.

Now Layton has accused other commenters of pushing to extremes no one is suggesting. However, a certain amount of foot in the door going on here. After all, look at the history of CCTV in England. By the time you oppose the last step, you're too late.

Finally hilarious is this other claim of Layton's: "Only the guilty run when no one is chasing them." Firstly, a friend and I used to bolt for fun everytime a police cruiser turned the corner while we were walking nearby. We particularly enjoyed doing it to Layton's precious Air-1. Secondly, here's a slightly related concept:

Everyone lies, Michael. The innocent lie because they don't want to be blamed for something they didn't do and the guilty lie because they don't have any other choice.

Last Wednesday, actress Natasha Richardson died in New York from a brain injury after a skiing accident. She and her husband, actor Liam Neeson, had two sons—just 12 and 13 years old.

Actor Liam Neeson and his mother-in-law, Vanessa Redgrave, walk through St. Peter's Cemetery in Lithgow, N.Y. on March 22 after a funeral for Neeson's wife, Natasha Richardson, who died in New York on March 18th following a skiing accident

You just know that somewhere, somewhere, a Quebec separatist is steaming that his province got ignored by Susanna Schrobsdorff.

[Editors Note: This post, originally begun at 9:58am on March 22, 2008, was forgotten by FACLC without being completed. Anyways, the basic idea that's being run with here is that if you want to see a lot of dead brown people, Obama is the way to go: his foreign policy will result in a lot of innocent dead people from the third world with lots of lily-white American G.I.s safe at home -- policies that Bush/McCain would not have gone for.]

It goes without saying that Barak Obama would probably be the worst President on domestic issues in the United States since Lyndon Johnson. However, everybody seems convinced to evaluate him on his apparent "racial healing" bona fides [innocent question: if he runs and loses, would that increase this racial rift he is so worried about? Would Barak Obama the defeated-in-November candidate's loss cause huge riots and protests and complaints and the like? In other words, isn't running a campaign of Obama's style ultimately a dangerous stunt with serious consequences? Talk about being a divider, not a uniter! -ed].

So I guess its time to look at a serious consequence of a Barak Obama administration: the desire of white racists will be met overseas when Obama is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Arabs.

Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.

[We shall see if China/North Korea/etc. mess around before 2013... it may be that not only Arabs will pay the price of Hope and Change. In the meanwhile, the domestic disaster is already $1,000,000,000,000 in the making, and less than 100 days in! -ed]

Quick summary, Gillian was right: by Monday they were both over it. I know the video is 9:44, but the fight was less than three minutes long (it starts around 5:08). It ended up a little on the anticlimactic side, and waiting 'til 7:40 to discuss it just added to the lame-ness of it all. Astral Media didn't lose their morning show mealtickets, two guys who are in my car at least 30% of all mornings are still friends, and a charity gets $10,000. Other than that, it was all Phantom Menace-ey.

Well, far be it for me to criticize a blog that in one short week has received more traffic than I have in 3+ years comments than I have received traffic in 3+ years, but I think the infamous Barack's Teleprompter blog has already gone and jumped the shark on us.

Like I said, with 1200 Google Friends followers (I have 0) and 3,575 Twitter followers (I have 1) I perhaps shouldn't expect to have a lot of weight in the discussion, but I'm just putting it out there that as far as I'm aware, the gag is over.

So today I thought it might be a smart idea to sign onto this Twitter thing that people are up to. I'm not on MySpace. Nada on Facebook. But the phone-capable posting sounds like something that might come in handy.

FACLC sounds like a good username for me. But its taken. What? That's odd. Well, FCLC is available.

Now my email is taken? Did my email get hacked recently?

About 30 panicked seconds later I discovered that... wait... I already have a Twitter account dating back to September 2008. Good thing I told myself this. It could have been handy all this time.

So anyways I now have Twitter. You can follow me at:http://twitter.com/FACLCand also I will be placing a Twitter widget on the sidebar.

2009-03-23

Kevin Martin and Randy Ferbey in the final. Do they even need to go through the motions at this point? Forget the rest of the weekend, leave the new teams to play just for shits and giggles. We know which two teams will be in the finals. Every year.

And then their Third, Nancy Bélanger, is gorgeous. Here's the team photo gallery full of hotness. The real killer for the Canada Cup this past weekend? Nancy Bélanger has very dark hair now and sports Sarah Palin glasses. Wow!

We disagree on many political subjects, often in hilariously animated exchanges, and she is a delightful and memorable personality. She is a well-educated lawyer, who clerked for a distinguished judge, has kept her university-era and other old friends, and is much preoccupied these days taking care of her unwell mother.

In his March 11 Post article, Mr. Moore wrote of Ms. Coulter with a sanctimony as broad and flat as the Canadian Prairies: “One wondered if even she took herself seriously,” in reference to her latest book, Guilty: Liberal Victims and their Assault on America.

I can report that she doesn’t, particularly, and never did. She is a rational conservative, slightly to the right of Ronald Reagan, and a practicing, middle-of-the-road Christian. This puts her within, albeit on the right side of, the American mainstream, a position that perhaps corresponds with Mr. Moore’s idea of the Middle Ages.

As she is in a highly competitive business (conservative commentary in a generally conservative country), she has developed some successful promotional techniques. She is the ne plus ultra of pulverizing and scandalizing the soft left, implying revisionism about Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and Darwinian evolution, though she believes in due process and is not a creationist. She stakes out a number of positions on other current and philosophical issues, which provoke the holders of the conventional liberal wisdom to react like wounded animals, but she really differs only marginally from standard, respectable conservative views on most subjects.

In a lot of ways its hard to get a good read on Ann, mostly because whenever she's interviewed she's always "in character". You'd have better luck getting 1980s WWF wrestlers to break kayfabe than her. Even when on the subject of her favourite recipe she manages to be deliberately baiting of liberals. (Though she did refer to something as "fruity" without further comment).

Here's a video of a guy in Edmonton starting his car in -34C weather (without having plugged it in... whoops!).

And now, to be funny, a guy "cold starting" his Subaru in...

...

...

drumroll please...

...

...

...

-4C. Oooohhhhh, scary

"These cars are good in the cold weather." It better be good! It's barely below freezing! The notion that a "red truck over there" actually failed to start in -4C temperatures should be a massive source of embarassment.

This actually reminds me of winter of 1995: I was in Camrose visiting a friend, and her roommate had a friend up from the Pacific Northwest. It went to -43C overnight, it was -39C at the time, and his car wouldn't start. He comes in to wonder why, and of course we all laugh at him: dude, didn't you plug it in?

Er, no, of course he'd never even heard of such an idea (and didn't have a block heater, naturally). So now he wants to start his car, and asks how to fix the problem. Well, it had been parked for at least 2 days, so I let him know he would have to tow it inside a heated garage (the place we stayed at didn't have one) and after maybe 8 hours (more like 12) it would be warm enough to start. This wasn't fast enough for him. What about a tiger torch? After we patiently explained that he probably didn't want to catch his car on fire and/or blow it up and/or lay under the car with a tiger torch for 20 minutes, he resigned himself to...actually, I don't know how the story ends, as I had to leave before the situation resolved itself. Hmmm, wonder whatever happened to that guy.

So with talk of a cold car not starting, and a Dream Warriors-inspired post title, you think I could include their cover of Edmonton Block Heater? Nope. How about linking to the song on fast.fm or something? Nope. Maybe the Pursuit of Happiness cover? Er, also not available.

Well, at the very least you can listen to the Edmonton-formed Vancouver-based pop group Edmonton Block Heater on MySpace.

The former president's speech almost exactly marks nine years since the Avala TV Tower near Belgrade was destroyed in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, said organizer Peggy Askin, and it's not OK to forget what happened in the ensuing years.

Protesters flung projectile blue dresses from adevice at the massive photo of a smiling Clinton, while others jeered and tossed used condoms and Chinese currency by hand.

Of course, despite twice being in Calgary to give speeches, you never see articles like this Toronto Star article I borrowed some of the text from above. You also never heard about stories like this one on the CBC:

"I think a lot of people are really motivated by the idea that we have to make it really clear to him that he's not off the hook," she said. "I think it's important to people who think that he has committed war crimes to not just let this go by the wayside."

The group plans to hold a mock war crimes trial for Bush this weekend and stage a peaceful rally outside his speech next Tuesday. Lemieux is asking those who can't participate to send their shoes for a symbolic protest echoing the Iraqi journalist who threw his footwear at Bush.

Of course you don't have to hold a "mock trial" for Clinton... they threw a real one, and he was impeached in it (but not removed from office). They didn't cover him for his war crimes, of course... but you'll notice that every American President becomes a "war criminal". For crying out loud, Noam Chomsky calls Jimmy Fucking Carter a war criminal! (Though he may have helped some Nazis escape trial)

I think the gist is clear: every U.S. President is called a "war criminal" up until the point his successor does something warlike and he either becomes the lightning rod for criticism (as Bush was after Clinton) or causes fans of the new administration to drop the matter lest their boy be called into question. Every right-wing speaker is hounded by these professional protestors who are simply jealous that they aren't 1/10th as smart as George W. Bush, aren't 1/100th as successful as George W. Bush, and aren't 1/1000th as compassionate as George W. Bush. [that's why they like Obama: those fractions all get swapped for whole numbers. -ed]

So a bunch of hippies protested in Calgary. If Bush was half the monster they claimed he was, they'd have all been killed. Ah well, maybe next President.

Last Link on the Left, the go-to place to read up on Edmonton's homicide team, informed us that on February 7th Edmonton Police reported an arrest was imminent in the case of Shernell Pierre. You may recall I've posted on her before: it remains one of my most-read entries. It turns out a good reason for that is that my posts were linked by LLotL:

As police continued with their investigation, a local blog provided possible background information on Pierre's recent male relationships. The entry raised the question of "internet speculation" amongst media and police.

The Edmonton-based blog The Third Edge of the Sword posted an entry on Sunday, March 16th titled The inside scoop on that nurse in the burning car.

The Third Edge blogger responded to the reporters' requests in a posting detailing the extent of his knowledge of the case.

The issue of stories and comments posted on the internet became the focus of an Edmonton Sun article written by Kevin Crush, first posted online late on March 20th and printed in their hard copy issue the next day.

Perhaps frustrated by the Third Edge blogger's refusal to speak to media, the Sun posed the question of "internet speculation" to the detective in charge of the Pierre case, Dennis Storey.

The officer said it "barely registers with investigators" and "it's all being taken with a grain of salt.

“Unless there is something of significance on there that we know nothing about, we don’t pay too much attention to it. It holds no value whatsoever. It's a lot of people voicing their opinions,” Storey told the Sun.

“If they have something of substance, then they should be calling us.”

The detective said the sensational nature of the case was likely fueling the "speculation."

“You're going to get a lot of rumors and a lot of people trying to solve this in their own head. They’re going to come up with ideas and share it and there’s no accountability for them and their comments.

"They can say whatever they like and if they’re wrong they say sorry and that doesn’t really work with us as far as criminal investigations go.”

I gotta say that last bit was new to me: I don't read the paper daily, so I hadn't noticed what may well be an allusion to what I wrote here. On the other hand, it could just be things like message board speculation:

SewingDeb,

Apparently there is a witness who saw the suspect sitting in the passenger seat.

I wonder if he set the car on fire after he shot her, to get rid of any dna evidence he left in the car.

Still, I like the bit about "Unless there is something of significance on there that we know nothing about, we don’t pay too much attention to it. It holds no value whatsoever. It's a lot of people voicing their opinions". It ties in pretty close with some of the other things that EPS has been surprised about that they could have learned on this blog.